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Jason Ellson

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Biography from TheMovieDB

Jason Ellson, SOC, is a camera and steadicam operator. He began his professional journey shooting news and documentaries across Australia and Southeast Asia. In 1998, he became an accredited steadicam operator. In 2000, he relocated to the United States to follow his interest in narrative filmmaking.  Ellson’s credits include high-profile films such as Hidden Figures (2016), Mulan (2020), Mortal Kombat (2021), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), and Elvis (2022). He has held roles as an A-camera operator and a steadicam operator, among others.  In 2014, he won a News & Documentary Emmy for One Life (2011) in the category Outstanding Cinematography: Documentary and Long Form, an award he shared with Kevin Flay, Rod Clarke, Barrie Britton, Gavin Thurston, and Simon Werry. He was also a winner of the Emerging Cinematographer Awards in 2009 for Aftermath.  He was also nominated by the Society of Camera Operators for Camera Operator of the Year for his work on Elvis (2022) in 2023.  Ellson is based in Los Angeles, married, with three children. Physical fitness is an important part of his life, which supports the often demanding work on set.

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Film Production

"A" Camera Operator:
2013  Gilded Lilys
2013  Tracks
2014  The Bag Man
2015  Jane Got a Gun
2015  Truth
2016  Hidden Figures
2016  Mother's Day
2016  Spectral
2018  The Spy Who Dumped Me
2021  Ghostbusters: Afterlife
2021  Mortal Kombat
2022  Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
2022  Elvis
2022  Thirteen Lives
2026  Mortal Kombat II
????  Mayday
????  Voltron

"B" Camera Operator:
2012  21 Jump Street
2012  The Watch
2013  Gilded Lilys
2013  Tracks
2013  We're the Millers
2014  22 Jump Street
2014  The Bag Man
2015  Jane Got a Gun
2015  Truth
2016  Central Intelligence
2016  Hidden Figures
2016  Mother's Day
2016  Spectral
2017  Snatched
2018  Game Night
2018  The Spy Who Dumped Me
2021  Ghostbusters: Afterlife
2021  Mortal Kombat
2022  Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
2022  Elvis
2022  Thirteen Lives
2026  Mortal Kombat II
????  Mayday
????  Voltron

Camera Operator:
2009  Angels & Demons
2009  Surrogates
2010  Faster
2012  21 Jump Street
2012  The Watch
2013  Gilded Lilys
2013  Tracks
2013  We're the Millers
2014  22 Jump Street
2014  The Bag Man
2015  Jane Got a Gun
2015  Truth
2016  Central Intelligence
2016  Hidden Figures
2016  Mother's Day
2016  Spectral
2017  Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
2017  Snatched
2018  Game Night
2018  The Spy Who Dumped Me
2020  Mulan
2021  Ghostbusters: Afterlife
2021  Mortal Kombat
2022  Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
2022  Elvis
2022  Thirteen Lives
2025  Lilo & Stitch
2026  Mortal Kombat II
????  Mayday
????  Voltron

Director of Photography:
2007  How the Earth Was Made
2007  Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
2009  Angels & Demons
2009  Surrogates
2010  Faster
2012  21 Jump Street
2012  The Watch
2013  Gilded Lilys
2013  Tracks
2013  We're the Millers
2014  22 Jump Street
2014  The Bag Man
2015  Jane Got a Gun
2015  Truth
2016  Central Intelligence
2016  Hidden Figures
2016  Mother's Day
2016  Spectral
2017  Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
2017  Snatched
2018  Game Night
2018  The Spy Who Dumped Me
2020  Mulan
2021  Ghostbusters: Afterlife
2021  Mortal Kombat
2022  Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
2022  Elvis
2022  Thirteen Lives
2025  Lilo & Stitch
2026  Mortal Kombat II
????  Mayday
????  Voltron

Second Unit Director of Photography:
2007  How the Earth Was Made
2007  Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
2009  Angels & Demons
2009  Surrogates
2010  Faster
2012  21 Jump Street
2012  The Watch
2013  Gilded Lilys
2013  Tracks
2013  We're the Millers
2014  22 Jump Street
2014  The Bag Man
2015  Jane Got a Gun
2015  Truth
2016  Central Intelligence
2016  Hidden Figures
2016  Mother's Day
2016  Spectral
2017  Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
2017  Snatched
2018  Game Night
2018  The Spy Who Dumped Me
2020  Mulan
2021  Ghostbusters: Afterlife
2021  Mortal Kombat
2022  Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
2022  Elvis
2022  Thirteen Lives
2025  Lilo & Stitch
2026  Mortal Kombat II
????  Mayday
????  Voltron

Steadicam Operator:
2007  How the Earth Was Made
2007  Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
2009  Angels & Demons
2009  Surrogates
2010  Faster
2010  Salt
2011  Abduction
2012  21 Jump Street
2012  The Avengers
2012  The Watch
2013  Gilded Lilys
2013  Tracks
2013  We're the Millers
2014  22 Jump Street
2014  The Bag Man
2014  The Gambler
2015  Fantastic Four
2015  Jane Got a Gun
2015  Truth
2016  Central Intelligence
2016  Hidden Figures
2016  Mother's Day
2016  Spectral
2017  Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
2017  Snatched
2018  Game Night
2018  The Spy Who Dumped Me
2020  Mulan
2021  Ghostbusters: Afterlife
2021  Mortal Kombat
2022  Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
2022  Elvis
2022  Thirteen Lives
2025  Lilo & Stitch
2026  Mortal Kombat II
????  Mayday
????  Voltron

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TV Production

"A" Camera Operator:
2015  The Messengers
2025  Chief of War

Camera Operator:
2012  Nashville
2013  Brooklyn Nine-Nine
2014  True Detective
2015  The Messengers
2016  The Catch
2025  Chief of War

Director of Photography:
2006  Alive: Back to the Andes
2012  Nashville
2013  Brooklyn Nine-Nine
2014  True Detective
2015  The Messengers
2016  The Catch
2025  Chief of War

Steadicam Operator:
2006  Alive: Back to the Andes
2012  Nashville
2013  Brooklyn Nine-Nine
2014  True Detective
2015  The Messengers
2016  The Catch
2025  Chief of War

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Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).

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While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:

  • I added "runners up" to Top 10 lists, treating them as ties where applicable and numbering them accordingly at the bottom of each list.
  • Regarding those polls wherein "franchise" movies were submitted as one project until BFI's policy changed to regard them separately, I treated them as ties and renumbered the affected lists accordingly (e.g. the Godfather films).

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Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).

Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.

Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.